This October, I felt a pang of sadness knowing that I was missing my favorite season and favorite holiday back home. There are no pumpkin patches in Korea, and you are lucky if you happen to stumble upon a decent looking pumpkin large enough to be carved. I don't have an oven, so even if I did find the ingredients for pumpkin pie, the effort it would take to make it would certainly outweigh my desire to do so. Halloween stores are few and far between. Korean people don't dress up for Halloween, and kids are too busy studying in after school academies to be able to take a few hours off to haunt the streets and collect candy. So initially, I was quite disappointed, to say the least, but my expectations slowly made a quick turn around.
To begin with, early on in October, I had asked my kids what they knew about Halloween and if they celebrated. Of course I got the generic answers, "Yes teacha, I know... Halloween is pumpkins" Yes, I reassured them, but "what do you KNOW about Halloween... what else do we do for Halloween? Do you know trick-or-treat, do you know jack-o-lantern, or haunted house?" Some of them knew just a bit about Halloween but they surely did not understand my excitement. In order to change this, I offered up a Halloween party. "How would you like to have a Halloween party together? I will teach you about Halloween, we can play Halloween games and have trick-or-treat!" Of course, luring them in with candy takes a little less than two seconds. With the little that they know, they are highly aware that candy is involved, and so... they were on board. I gave them a bit of incentive by giving each of my 120 students a personal invitation to our Halloween party. They were then told that each day up until the party, they would have to earn a sticker on their invitation. If they did a good job in class, listened, did not talk when I was talking, and participated, they would each receive one sticker per day. This made each of them responsible for themselves only. On the day of the Halloween party, they had to have acquired a certain number of stickers to partake in the festivities. Of course we made it so that they could each lose one sticker, allowing each of them to have one bad day and still be able to come play (surely, regardless, I had no intentions of neglecting anyone from the party either way but it sure did keep them on their best behavior for a week). Once they learned that they needed a certain number of stickers, they asked myself and my co teacher what would happen if they didn't have enough stickers. Jiyoung told them that students who didn't earn their stickers would have a private English class with her while the rest of the students would be having a Halloween party with me. Their jaws dropped with wide eyes staring in disbelief, "TEACHA... OH MY GOD! Berry berry bad."
The week before Halloween came and went. Sangwon and Hyun helped me decorate the doorways to the classroom with spiderwebs, ghosts with googly eyes, and balloon pumpkins. I also spent the week prior wearing spooky masks, vampire fangs, monster teeth, and pranking them with fake spiders and jumpy Halloween videos. I absolutely adored their reactions. Being that my kids are 5th and 6th graders, none of them were very taken back or spooked by my creepy attire but my coworker's 3rd and 4th graders sure did run screaming from me when I crept around the hallway into her room. Priceless. The fake spiders were a success. During lessons, I would find one kid in a group of desks that wasn't paying attention and put a fake spider on the desk, making the other kids aware and giving them the "shhhh!" symbol. There they sat like little heathens, glad to be in on the prank. We would then either wait until the victim turned, sighting the hairy arachnid on their desk, or tap them on the shoulder, gesturing at it in a frightening manner, and wait for their reaction. Some of the kids jumped a few feet, others just gave me the, "nice try teacha," face and then protested that they in fact "like" spiders. Then there was the kid who apparently has a phobia of spiders who practically had a panic attack in my room... and that's where the spider pranks ended.
Scary Rachel Teacher. Mwahahahahaaaaa.
Our classroom decorations.
Jiyoung and I in our classroom with our students pumpkin decorations.
We had two separate parties. Tuesday, October 30th was set aside for my sixth graders and Halloween day was set aside for my fifth graders. I happened to stumble upon a nice sized pumpkin for sale in Dungcheon the weekend before, so I managed to buy it, haul it home on the subway, and carve a real jack-o-lantern for my kids. They were very impressed when Jiyoung told them... "Look how much Rachel Teacher loves you... she took it home on the subway one hour for you." YES, I told them... and I got a lot of stares as well! They all clapped... "Teacha, THANK YOU!" The party itself was awesome. Each class had an hour long party. When they entered the room, we had the lights out with spooky music playing and the jack-o-lantern lit. They had to sit through about a 15 minute power point about Halloween traditions in the USA before we could start any games. They were all given 5 candies to chow down on as they watched and listened. Surprisingly, they were all very interested in everything I told them about Halloween. I incorporated some pictures of me and my friends carving pumpkins, at the pumpkin patch, and videos of haunted houses. They ate it up! After we finished learning about Halloween and eating our candy, we bobbed for apples and played musical chairs to the monster mash. The games were by far the best part of the party. Bobbing for apples was hysterical. The first few contestants were too hesitant to dunk their head into the water fully, but within minutes we had participants going to town catching apples with their mouths sending the whole class into roaring laughs and cheers. Monster mash musical chairs was also quite entertaining as I watched my students walk around like ducks desperate to get a chair and then let out ear piercing screams when the music would stop. Last, our students voted on the best pumpkins from their class, as they spent the week before turning in pumpkin drawings and decorating the room with them. I was so happy to be able to share my favorite holiday with my students. As I sit here writing this recall of events, I have an unmistakable grin spreading across my face. The pictures say it all. I had almost 300 picture ALONE from our Halloween party... it was really hard to narrow them down, but I picked them ones with the best happy faces and apple shots!
We hope you had a happy Halloween from the students at Yeon Ji Elementary School!
My personal Halloween experience, beyond the classroom, was also probably the best Halloween I've had yet. Celebrating Halloween in a country where it is not celebrated, made it all the better. The weekend before Halloween we made our way out on the town all dressed up. The stares were intense. As foreigners, we get stares ALL THE TIME. On a regular day, it can be irritating, and sometimes you want to let out a smart ass comment, "Is there something on my face? Take a picture, it will last longer." On Halloween, we embraced the stares and played with people to the fullest. Kimberly was a panda bear, Aileen was... (I'm not sure really) a sexy red headed retro girl, and I was my all time favorite, Wolverine. Kim and I made our way to Hongdae all dressed up on the subway. We got some looks of sheer amusement, some people blatantly pointing at me and gasping WOLVERINE, some laughs and smiles, and some utterly confused stares. As the subway would come to a stop at each transfer, Kim would video tape me full on RUNNING out of the doors through crowds of people, doing a 180 jump and flashing my claws at people. I embraced the costume to say the least. If you can't have fun on Halloween, when can you? There were moments when Kim and I were literally hunched over laughing uncontrollably in the subway and trying not to pee ourselves from people's reactions. Once we got to Hongdae and met up with Aileen, the party was on. It was my first night out drinking since the beginning of my ear treatment and we were going HARD. We decided that we would attempt to get into Cocoon. It boasts one of the top night clubs in Hongdae but the line is always an hour wait or longer. While walking by, a bouncer from the club looked at me and stated the obvious..."Wolverine!" Yes, we said... wolverine. Kim then said something about us wanting to go to Cocoon, he motioned for us to follow him, and let us in front of an hour and a half line. "I feel like I'm with a celebrity," Kim laughed. "Don't turn around, the people behind us are going to be pissed." Just then, we felt a tap on the shoulder and the two Korean girls behind us in line were requesting a picture. Inside there were free shots of tequila until 1am, and strobe lights and music loud enough to get anyone moving. We stuck it out a while but we were some of the few in costumes so we decided to go check out another place. Hongdae park was where it was at. When we entered Hongdae park, my life changed. I now know what it is like to be a celebrity, followed by paparazzi . Everyone wanted their picture taken with wolverine. It was so much fun! Kim, Aileen, and I had a blast just taking pictures with people, and having fun with all the other foreigners and some Koreans dressed up in costumes. The rest of the night after Hongdae park was somewhat a mess. We acquired more bottles of soju, hit up some other clubs and harassed people on the streets in our costumes. Thankfully, Hongdae is a young and lively crowd so they were loving our Halloween antics and many people were right there beside us doing the same. I have few words to describe the night other than EPIC. It was definitely hands down, one of my favorite nights in the city with my friends.
My epic wolverine costume! Success.
With the bouncer outside of Cocoon
My friends Brent, who is a talented writer and photographer nominated me for the Hongdae costume awards as "\Best Superhero." You can check out his blog here, with my picture, as well as the other nominees. Show him love by reading more about life in Korea through his blog. His pictures are unreal. Thanks for recognizing me in your blog, Brent!
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